


They're Gonna Love This One

by sarkywoman



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Gen, Knives, Possible Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-09-01 02:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20250772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarkywoman/pseuds/sarkywoman
Summary: “I heard a Rumour you’re going to enjoy this next act nearly as much as you enjoyed mine.”For the 'Stage Fright' square at badthingshappenbingo. Diego is uncomfortable with his current act in the Umbrella Circus.





	1. They're Gonna Love This One

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't utilised archive warnings on this one to be deliberately vague. The violence is no worse than canon show. The second 'chapter' is a tiny bit of optional reading, depending on how you feel about the ending of the first.

**“I heard a Rumour… that you thought you were a duck.”**

The balding, well-dressed gentleman begins to flap his arms like useless wings. He quacks. The audience laugh uproariously and applaud.

Diego watches from behind the curtain as Allison entertains and performs a quick headcount. Two-hundred-and-twenty-nine. Not bad for an evening’s work. Dad will complain of course. Diego can almost hear him already - _ “Your fantastical powers combined cannot even draw a full three-hundred spectators? Useless.”_

There are more viewers every show. Ever since they let Allison take the lead. Her shockingly masculine suit over a feminine frame draws attention initially, but it is her power that keeps it.

“Are you enjoying the show? **I heard a Rumour that you are.**"

He wonders if he is the only one uncomfortable with all of this. Allison’s not even the worst part. 

The ticket booth is in reality a table arranged outside the tent, with a safe beneath. It is quiet when Diego leans outside. No more jubilant customers, just his other sister Vanya playing a violin. Alone in the unusually cool summer’s night. 

“Two-hundred-and-twenty-nine?” He asks.

She smiles without looking at him as her fingers arrange pretty notes on her instrument. “Two-hundred-and-twenty-two.”

“So I’m basically right.”

“Sure, if numbers are interchangeable.”

“Not much difference between a nine and a two.”

Vanya arches an eyebrow. “By all means tell dad that. He checks our takings meticulously, you know.”

“Of course he does.” Anything else would require a measure of trust.

“You’ll be on soon,” Vanya reminds him. 

“At this rate? Not sure there’ll be any other acts in the Allison Show.”

That knowing smile is still on Vanya’s lips. “You say that as though you care.”

“Well I don’t,” he snaps. “This show is a mockery of us and what we can do. We’re like caged animals being forced to perform for peanuts. You might be desperate to be a part of that, but some of us don’t crave dad’s approval so badly.”

He leaves before he can see the look on her face. He doesn’t care about this freakshow. He does his bit, he earns his pay, then he forgets about it until the next show. He doesn’t train endlessly like their strongman brother Luther or rehearse infinite options for amusement like Allison.

** “I heard a Rumour that you’re all eager to put an extra coin or two on the plate that’s going around.”**

As he makes his way around behind the scenes of the circus he notices a trapeze swinging idly. Seemingly unattended or untouched. 

But there is no breeze.

“You hiding from me?” He calls.

Little brother Number Five appears in front of him, gaze scathing. “As if you intimidate me. I’m practising a new teleportation routine. You happened to interrupt.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Perhaps you should be preparing for your own routine,” Five says archly. “You’re the only one left for the evening after Allison and the stakes of your act are… very high.”

“Funny, you never used to say that with Vanya.”

Even then, Diego had offered to use props. Apples. Animals, if necessary. Their father had refused to allow it. Had suggested that such offers reeked of weakness and a lack of confidence. _ “Vanya would welcome the opportunity to participate, I’m sure.”_

“Vanya was capable,” Five says calmly.

“Klaus is capable,” Diego replies, though he is not sure he believes his own words. “And someone needs to help me. Between Klaus and Vanya, who would you want at the ticket booth?”

“Well Vanya, obviously, but--”

“There you go then.”

“At least Vanya would be of sober mind on the stage.”

“We don’t know Klaus isn’t.”

Five rolls his eyes. “He was supposed to display some contortion while I performed my air routine this evening. He didn’t make it to the stage.”

“Did you check on him?” Diego asks, already feeling the urgent need to rush to Klaus’ dressing room. 

“Of course. He’s fine. Just...” Five makes a vague gesture to his head.

“He didn’t get a hold of the imported stuff again, did he?”

“No, I don’t think so. He was almost coherent.”

“A good sign,” Diego says, taking his leave.

“I would prefer full coherency,” Five calls after him. “Given what you have in store for him soon.”

** “I heard a Rumour this is the best show you’ve ever seen.”**

Diego knows he is cutting it close for time. But that is what he does. Cuts to within a centimetre of something valuable. 

He is almost relieved that Allison takes more and more time, more and more show. The less time he is out there the better. His stutter grows worse in front of so many people. They have dealt with this problem by removing the need to speak from his segment entirely. Now he performs in silence. Everyone has agreed it improves the ambience. Lends the act a sense of terror, as if the world is holding its breath to watch him fail.

Failure is utterly unthinkable. The fact that his powers make it nigh-impossible is not enough. 

Pushing aside the curtain hanging haphazardly from a wooden beam, he sees his dear Klaus by the mirror.

“I’m just saying it’s nice, is all,” he says, his voice its usual slightly-slurred ramble. “It was so sad seeing you in a cage. Now you’re free!” A pause. “Okay, okay, not exactly. But freer.”

“Who are you talking to?”

Klaus straightens from where he was leaning heavily on the counter. “Oh, myself,” he says with a dreamy little smile. He has powdered red and sparkles like miniscule jewels around his eyes. Matching the red of his ruffles and his inappropriately short and tight red leather trousers. 

There is an empty liquor bottle behind the cosmetic pots and a tray filled with ash, giving enough evidence for Diego to understand the smell of the room. 

Just as Diego understands without explanation that Klaus is speaking to their lost brother Ben. Ben who had fought against every box and cage until one day he was begging to go back inside one. The monster inside him was pushed to perform until the person around it broke.

The same is happening to Klaus. Diego only hopes they have done enough by removing him from his previous act – the seances. They had been a huge draw for the crowds, but the entertainment of the living was not the chief purpose of the dead. When the shows were over, Klaus struggled to put them away. Now he drinks and smokes them away using whatever badly-brewed liquor or life-threatening chemical he can locate. 

“It’s nearly showtime.”

“Oh, marvellous.” Klaus takes a step towards him and stumbles. Diego catches him. 

“Are you going to be able to do this?”

In his arms, Klaus laughs. “I don’t need to do anything out there. Isn’t that the point? It’s all up to you.” He pouts at whatever look is on Diego’s face and pats his cheek. “Aw, don’t worry. I trust you.”

Diego helps him stand steady again, nearby in case he falls. “You have to hold still, you know that.”

“It’ll be fine,” Klaus reassures him, waving a hand and staggering out of the dressing area in bare feet.

As Allison dresses more like a dapper gentleman, Klaus appears like a rouge-covered courtesan, but for the trousers. It has the same effect, drawing the eye and the scandalised drop of the jaw. Catching attention for the show to keep it. Goodness knows Diego’s dark stage outfit does nothing to draw the eye. He’s happy that way.

** “I heard a Rumour you’re going to enjoy this next act nearly as much as you enjoyed mine.”**

Above Allison’s dazzling smile, Diego can see her gaze is sharp as she watches them approach. He wonders how long she has been waiting for them. One of these days she will just Rumour them onto the stage. She lives for the blinding stage lights and the false adulation. 

Klaus huffs next to him and wipes a hand across his pale face. Diego steps closer to smudge away the smeared parts of make-up with his thumb. Klaus’ smile is sweetly grateful and altogether too intimate for what they are about to do. It is a smile that belongs to quiet nights in their father’s library or walks through the park. It is nothing like the smiles they are supposed to wear for their audience. 

He need not have worried about that. Klaus steps into the bright lights with a flourish and a beam to match them. The crowd cheer and applaud, though many are bewildered by his appearance. 

Diego follows at a normal stride, not looking at their audience. He has actually come to despise them as the shows go on. These might be newcomers, but they all blur into one voracious voyeur. He helps steady Klaus as he climbs up onto a box adjacent to a large wheel. Then he straps his brother’s skinny wrists to the wheel. They’re wide apart and not for the first time, Diego wonders how Klaus can stand to be made so vulnerable. Someone trying to tie Diego’s wrists apart would have a real fight on their hands. But Klaus allows the manhandling, first of both arms, then he allows for one ankle to be bound, then the other. 

“Behold Dangerous Diego Dagger,” Allison announces, “and his dear brother Klaus, as they dare death itself to come closer.”

As she passes them on her way off of the stage, she whispers to Klaus, ** “I heard a Rumour you don’t throw up.”**

Of course Klaus only smiles and closes his eyes as she spins the wheel. She’s gone by the time he slows to a standstill, at which point Diego stops juggling his knives and throws one. The _thunk_ sound as it the blade jams into the wooden wheel is the only bit of relief he feels on this stage.

He knows he never misses his target. In this case it is always a couple of centimetres away from Klaus. 

_Thunk_.

The crowd gasp. It always makes him tense, as though their fear infects him.

_Thunk_.

Diego grabs his knives and spins the wheel again, not smiling at Klaus’ quiet “wheee...” The crowd are less amused. He can hear them panicking that he’s not going to wait for Klaus’ spinning to slow. They’re right.

_Thunk_.

It’s not possible for him to miss. He reminds himself of this constantly. It’s just… different with Klaus. Klaus is impossible in so many ways. Diego lets the familiarity of the blade reassure him and blindly flings it out.

_Thunk_.

He’s so different from Vanya, who had held still and smiled awkwardly and had worn pure white to deter even a little cut. Klaus in his crimson ruffles blurs around like a butterfly. Five tells him they have unpredictable flight patterns. 

Allison rumoured him out of being sick, but she never told Klaus he couldn’t faint.

Out of the corner of his eye Diego sees Klaus’ head loll as the blade leaves his hand.

He waits for the _thunk_.

The crowd gasp.

Then go silent.


	2. Optional Alternative Ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m rather happy with how this story ended. Or rather, didn’t. I think that from a literary perspective I prefer it that way, stopping there. 
> 
> However.
> 
> Recently I wrote something rather sad that made a lot of people very sad and I couldn’t see any other conceivable way of writing it/ending it/fixing it.
> 
> This isn’t the case here.
> 
> For those of you who simply cannot take the implied ending of the story as it stands in this current state, there is… a little alternative. Let’s call it an AU of this AU.

Allison rumoured him out of being sick, but she never told Klaus he couldn’t faint.

Out of the corner of his eye Diego sees Klaus’ head loll as the blade leaves his hand.

He waits for the _thunk_.

The crowd gasp.

Then go silent. 

Diego can barely turn his head to see what he has done.

Until he hears Five curse.

Their little brother holds his bloody arm, which has shielded Klaus from the dagger. He glares at the dagger, then fiercely at Diego. ‘I told you so’ would not begin to cover this, but it spills from his angry expression nonetheless.

Allison rushes onto the stage and spares a glance for Five’s arm before hearing **“a Rumour that this act went exactly as planned.”**

There is a round of confused applause. Luther and Vanya hurry onto the stage and escort Five away while Allison thanks everyone for their attendance tonight.

The bright lights dim.

With shaking hands, Diego unfastens the straps holding Klaus to the wheel. Loose-limbed and unconscious, Klaus falls into his arms.

“He’s becoming a liability,” Allison says quietly. “I don’t want him hurt. He needs to--”

“Leave?” Diego asks. “Yeah. Agreed.”

She blinks. “That isn’t what I had in mind.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t. See you later.”

“Diego, wait! You can’t be serious. This show is going places. It needs all of us.”

“Of course you don’t.”

He is almost out of her sight before he hears, “I heard a--”

“_Don’t_ make me wound two siblings in one night.”

Her teeth clack shut.

Gathering his and Klaus’ things from the show does not take long. There are some of their possessions back at their father’s house, but those can be retrieved another time. When everyone has calmed down.

“Klaus, come on, wake up.” Klaus grumbles and makes no attempt to wake up properly. “I don’t know how I’ll move you and our things if you don’t wake up.”

“Perhaps you could teleport,” says Number Five, appearing in the dressing room. He carries his shirt and jacket over one arm, a bandage prominent on his wound and still oozing blood.

“You look barely able to teleport yourself,” Diego notes, taking in the boy’s unusual pallor. The knife had gone in to the hilt. In one side of his skinny arm and poking out of the other. 

“I can. An apology would be welcome.”

“Look, I didn’t mean--”

“That’s not an apology.” Five frowns. “And not what I wanted the apology for.”

Diego swallows. He cannot even contemplate what Five is referring to. The thought makes him feel sick. “It would have curved.”

“It wouldn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“F’r what?” Klaus asks, blinking awake. 

“There was an accident,” Five says before Diego can become too emotional. “But we’re leaving now. We’re not doing this anymore.”

Klaus stretches languidly. “Oh, that’s good. Diego hates performing.” He reaches out and pats Diego’s arm affectionately. “He’s always worried he’ll miss.”


End file.
